


Reprise

by StAnni



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/M, Falling Apart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 22:16:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17610035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StAnni/pseuds/StAnni
Summary: The blood that feeds her mind, feeds that thought,  allows her eyes to open and see that expression on Bruce’s face, shoots through her heart in a deliberate, poisonous and painful shuddering beat.  Vindication.





	Reprise

She is woken by a crack of thunder, not having heard the storm break before. The room is dark and she is alone. The bedsheet next to her is disturbed and the linen cover exposed by the lifted duvet, empty and cold 

He must have left somewhere between eleven and two. 

When they were children, they fought and their arguments, increasing in both meaning and intensity became merciless in their late teens, and both of them at that point on the cusp of adulthood drove that relationship into the same wall. It took two years of careful tempering to trust each other again, or at least, at all – and they have only been together now, albeit shakily, for a few months.

And that has all changed again in the span of a night.

Six hours before they had left the Wayne Clinic fundraising gala in Bruce’s town car, something off between them – something different she couldn’t put her finger on. She had insisted on going to her apartment, despite his preference for the Manor – it had been a strange night, her dress was uncomfortable and she needed her own safe place. 

At her apartment Bruce stayed in the doorway and she turned, shaking her head slightly, perturbed by just how out of sync they seemed “What? You’re not coming in?” 

Those eyes – serious, always serious, always ready to question and to confront – now avoided hers. “I don’t think so, Selina.” And she took a step towards him, leaning against the door frame – unsure. “Something’s up, isn’t it? Everything just felt weird tonight.” He looked at her then, surprise, maybe even guilt in his eyes and he put a hand on her waist, warm – a comforting gesture that had developed between them. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ruin the evening.” Slightly relieved Selina smirked and walked inside, pulling him gently by the hand. “Well, maybe you can make it up to me.”  
But even in their closeness things didn’t feel as intimate as it had been before and breathless, finally, she had to stop, push him away. “Where are you?” she asked, hurt and frustrated, and upon which he answered, also frustrated “Here, I’m here.”

And they fell asleep with things unresolved, stilted– the bed stretching like a desert between them.

And then he left.

She tosses off the duvet and pulls on some clothes. He must be out there, wandering the streets of Gotham – getting himself into trouble without her and before she exits at her fire-escape she is already irritated, fight-ready. 

When she came back to Gotham – two years ago – after everything had calmed down, the waters had stilled – she had found him in the graveyard, staring at his parent’s headstones – his expression dark and lost. And he hadn’t turned to her, but spoke – in a low, tired voice “I missed you, Selina.” She was strong. She is strong. And her heart is strong. But her heart had shattered for him that cloudy afternoon, like it had shattered for him over and over again before – every time, only for him.

Love is terrible and unfair and it is never equally divided. She knows that, which is why she ran from it and then ran back to it, and now runs after it. Love is cruel, and unkind and a greedy, jealous child. And love is also quiet and still – and sad, always sad.

When she left, when things got bad, very bad – even when her heart felt like ice, or a dusty lump of coal dead in her chest – even then she always knew she would come back, that something would grow in the time between the distance, that she would have to deal with regret.

Of all places Bruce is at the Manor. He is not dressed from shoulder to toe in Lucius Fox’s ridiculous get-up, he is not beating up unsuspecting criminals - he is not exorcising demons like she thought he would be. He is sitting at his desk, in the dark, in thought.

She even feels angry when she slips through the patio windows, idiotic, confused but mostly angry at having run all over Gotham at two in the morning only to find him at his house. 

“What the hell, Bruce?” she asks, shaking her head, perplexed. He is surprised to see her, which is surprising – since he has an uncanny ability of sensing her presence before she even takes a breath. “What?” he asks, surprised and she exhales, exasperated “Why’d you bail?”, crossing her arms. He stares at her for a moment, as if he is considering an answer and then gets up, seeming to change his mind. It is unsettling to see him falter with her, usually he doesn’t mince his words – he has always, even when it was a knife to her heart, been straight with her. 

“Do you want to sit down?” he asks, his voice quiet and she takes a step back – it is reflexive, defensive and she doesn’t realise how her body is reacting to it until after she does it. She can feel her heart beat increase rapidly, the skin at her neck prick with cold realisation. “Something is wrong, isn’t it? It’s not just in my head. Something is wrong.”

This time his eyes are on hers, dark and concerned. She has seen that look before. She has seen every look that Bruce has ever had before. Or maybe she hasn’t. Her chest constricts suddenly at the thought that perhaps she doesn’t really know him as well as she thinks, perhaps she has been fooling herself. Perhaps all this time, she has been a fool.

“Just tell me.” She says, steeling herself, her voice as cold as her blood. “Tell me.”

The night before she was shot they were sitting on the couch not ten feet away from them now. She slung her legs over Bruce’s and when he leaned in to kiss her, in that moment she felt tethered. Connected to the world in a way that she thought was only meant for other people, lucky people. That feeling, that string binding her heart to Bruce’s heart, although at times perhaps having frayed, never snapped, never tore – was always there, bringing her back up to the surface from wherever she had sunk.  
Now that string was pulling, painfully, slowly. Perhaps there never was a string. Perhaps that string had broken long ago. Perhaps she hadn’t even noticed it was gone. Perhaps it had always just been pretend.

“It’s Rachel, isn’t it.” She says without needing an answer. She doesn’t need to hear his voice or see his expression to know that it is true, and that it is the one thing, the only thing, that never crossed her mind – regret, not hers – but Bruce’s. 

The blood that feeds her mind, feeds that thought, allows her eyes to open and see that expression on Bruce’s face, shoots through her heart in a deliberate, poisonous and painful shuddering beat. Vindication.

“I thought…after you came back…that I was over her.” he says but he could be saying anything, because it doesn’t really matter – the talk behind it, the motive.  
The thing that matters is the fact that one heart can put itself out, while the other burns and burns and burns itself up.


End file.
